In Past Show

About Mark Grotjahn

Painter and draftsman Mark Grotjahn is known for his ongoing investigation of perspective. In the "Butterfly" paintings starting in 1997, he uses dual and multiple vanishing points to create complex compositions of radiant, tonal color, alluding to such touchstones in the history of modernist painting as Russian Constructivism, Op Art, and Barnett Newman's "zips." Alongside perspective, he has pursued ideas like color restriction, seriality, and the sublime. In his more recent "Face" series, roughly painted on cardboard mounted to canvas, Grotjahn retains his radiant motif but replaces geometric rigor with ritualistic, totemic energy.